Writing succinctly
Posted Dec 2nd, 2008 by garrettBelow is a paragraph I found on the home page of a popular medical association.
Before: As XYZ association keeps tabs on persistent issues with health plans that impede your ability to care for patients, a few have come to the forefront recently. In response, we’ve created new letter templates for our members that should simplify the process of communicating these issues to health plans. Among other things, the letters address fair payment for immunizations, group visits and mental health services. Easy to download from our Web site, these templates were designed to help you make your practice less about the process, and more about the patients.
I’ve rewritten the paragraph (below) to be more web-friendly.
After: In response to your requests, we have created templates to simplify communication to health plans regarding issues that impede your ability to care for patients. The templates address fair payment for immunizations, group visits and mental health services.
More information:
Excellent example and relevant supporting links on how to implement web writing to cater to the user not the site itself.
Thanks for the comment! The key to a successful site is being user-focused. If you fail to give the user what they want they’ll move on to the next site.
This is a real challenge because often content contributors push what they want users to see, rather than having thoughtful discussions and considering why users come to your site.
Users come to a Web site to perform a task, not just to peruse the home page. Their satisfaction is directly linked to whether or not they can complete the desired task.